Red lucite grapes found in a 1970s Lincoln Continental. For some reason I’ve had a longtime sentimental attachment to objects made of translucent plastic.
The pale green soap that could be stolen on every journey from the toilets on the Southeastern train lines going down to Brighton - the destination of expectation and anticipation,” belonging to set designer Suzanne Beirne. With its italic “Welcome” inscription, this is an example of how objects can embody the narratives of lives unfolding, and become symbols of our dreams of what’s to come.
Highball glass from a flea market in Paris, from the collection of Kim Sion. The French equivalent of Sip ’n Strip glassware. As you pour in an icy drink the clothing of the woman comes off. Very few of these remain intact any more because of the invention of the dishwasher.
Erotic playing cards – a present given to my friend, the artist Oks, by her father in the 1980s, true origins unknown.
My chair from a dinette chair and table set that took a 10 hour touch-and-go drive in a van without back windows to pick up. The previous owner purchased it from an estate sale in Massachusetts in 1982, and it moved with him from state to state. The photographs he used to sell the set were of each of the the cats he owned placed on the tabletop. And a lighter I bought from a Memphis souvenir shop six years ago – the only one I’ve ever managed not to lose.
A teapot bought from Teapot Island, the UK’s largest collection of novelty teapots, in Yalding, Kent, by Louise Benson, who I co-founded the interiors magazine Scenic Views with. “There is a perfect absurdity to buying a handbag-shaped teapot as it doesn’t really function as either, but it seduces me again every time I see it. I keep it on my desk for a touch of glamour.
Thanks to Rebecca Fourteau for her bathroom and Marcy Robinson.